Botanical studies

Brigitte Mars, an herbalist and nutritional consultant in Boulder, Colorado, has been working with natural medicines for over 27 years. The formulator of the popular "UniTea" line of herbal teas, she teaches herbalism at Naropa Institute, The Rocky Mountain Center for Botanical Studies and The Boulder School of Massage Therapy. She frequently contributes articles to The Herb Companion, Natural Health, Let s Live, and other magazines, and is a member of the American Herbalist Guild. This is her first book. 

Sangster AG, Hodson MJ. Botanical studies of silicon localization in cereal roots and shoots, including cryotechniques a survey ofworkup to 1990, in TheState-of-the-Art ofPhytoliths in Soils and Plants (Pinilla A, Juan-Tresserras J, Machado MJ, eds.), Monografia 4 del Centro de Ciencias Medioambientales, CISC, Madrid, 1997, pp. 113-121. 

The coffee of commerce is from the nutlike seeds called beans, that are borne by a tropical evergreen tree, with glistening and waxy surfaced, broad leaves. The seeds are two to a fruit, in pairs, and are covered with a thin, usually red flesh, that makes a cherrylike fruit. There are said to be 50 to 80 different species of coffee. It is still a profitable field of botanical study. At present three species of the tree produce coffee of commerce. 

Kurochkina LYa (1979) The botanic studies in the Aral Sea Basin. Problemy Osvoeniya Pustyn 3 9-17 (in Russian)... 

Sulphur, for example, produced phosphorus-32, which was used as a tracer in botanical studies. CPD s chemical production branch would take irradiated material of this type from the reactor and chemically separate the radioactive element from its progenitor. Aside from phosphorus-32, CPDs line of separated isotopes included iodine-131, the isotope used most ficquendy (or medical diagnosis at the time iodine-125, also used for clinical test procedures carbon-14, a tracer for agricultural applications and mercury-197. All these sold steadily, if unspectacularly. The main customers were a handfril of pharmaceutical firms in Canada, the United States, and West Germany. 

The cross sections of the riveted tubular steel struts were informed by botanical studies of plant stems and made possible by the expertise of Clydeside s shipbuilders. The massive overstructuring was a reaction to the Tay bridge disaster a decade earlier. 

Diel s idea, based on the morphological aspects of the albumen and cotyledons was kept by Troupin when in 1962 he published a botanical study of the Afiican Menispermaceae (6). This is the division that is still used today (see Table I). 

Although herbs have been used for thousands of years, most of what we know has been from observation. Most herbs have not been scientifically studied for safety and efficacy (effectiveness). Much of what we know about herbal therapy has come from Europe particularly Germany. During the last several decades, European scientists have studied botanical plants in ways that seek to identify how they work at the cellular level, what chemicals are most effective, and adverse effects related to their use. Germany lias compiled information on 300 herbs and made recommendations for their use. 

This clearly overstates the potential of demographic study to provide a mechanistic understanding of plant responses to environments and, if implemented, would lead to unnecessary delay in the development of generalising principles. The remainder of this chapter is founded on the assumption that the most direct route to a coherent predictive theory of plant responses to stress is likely to involve a synthesis of insights derived from plant population biology, ecophysiology, and many other fields of botanical endeavour. 

Ferreres, F., Ortiz, A., Silva, C., Garcia-Viguera, C., TomLBarberan, F. A., and Tomas-Lorente, F. (1992). Flavonoids of La Alcarria honey. A study of their botanical origin. Z. Lebensm. Unters. Forsch. 194,139-143. 

Brinker F. Variations in effective botanical products the case for diversity of forms for herbal preparations as supported by scientific studies. HerbalGram 46 36-50, 1999. 

The United States Pharmacopeial Convention, Inc. (USP) in 2000 issued the USP criteria for levels of evidence for botanical articles [117]. While issued for botanicals, the criteria have application to all therapeutic agents. The USP criteria rank evidence from I to IV, with Level I being the strongest. Within Level I, the randomized controlled clinical trial is ranked highest, followed by meta-analysis and epidemiological studies. Level II consists of the same designs, but with methodological flaws. Level III includes inconclusive studies, and Level IV is anecdotal evidence. 

---